1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an angular velocity sensor element that detects an angular velocity of an object.
2. Description of the Related Art
Angular velocity sensor element's have hitherto been used for a technique of autonomously controlling the posture of ship, airplane, rocket or the like. Recently, they are also mounted in small-sized electronic apparatuses such as car navigation systems, digital cameras, video camcorders and mobile telephones. Consequently, there are demands for further miniaturization and thickness reduction of the angular velocity sensor elements.
However, vibrating arms of vibration-type angular velocity sensor are usually manufactured by means of cutting and forming performed by piezoelectric material machining. And since the machining accuracy is limited, it is difficult to meet the above demands for further miniaturization and thickness reduction.
Thus a technique has been proposed which, in order to achieve further miniaturization and thickness reduction of an angular velocity sensor element, performs a fine processing on a single crystal thin plate to form a vibrating arm. For example, in FIG. 21 of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-72334, an angular velocity sensor element has been disclosed which includes an element section with a vibrating arm and a frame-shaped fixed section secured to the element.
However, when a sudden shock is given from the outside to such angular velocity sensor element, a vibration caused by this shock is transmitted from the fixed section to the element section and detected as noise by the detection-related vibrating arm of the element section.
Thus, to address the above problem, the present invention has been devised, and an object thereof is to provide an angular velocity sensor element which, even when a sudden vibration is given from the outside, can absorb the vibration to prevent the vibration from being transmitted to an element section thereof.